Let us look at the case with the calm gaze of history. History knows nothing of theories in which the Roman Bishop appears as the centre of spiritual unity, the divinely commissioned head of the Universal Church. History knows just as little of theories in which the Roman Bishop appears as Antichrist and the Man of Sin. It may indeed be the business of history to trace the steps by which either theory arose in men’s minds; but it is not by the light of such theories as these that she will look at the facts of her own science. In the eyes of history the power of the Roman Church grew up simply because it was the Roman Church and the Church of no meaner city. The church founded in the mother and head of all cities could not fail to rank as the mother and head of all churches. Rome, the local Rome, still had life in her to rule, and if her Emperor forsook his calling in the local seat of rule, her Bishop was there to take his place. When the sword of Valentinian was powerless against the Hun, the voice of Leo was ready to charm with all its wisdom. Claudius and Vespasian had brought the elder folk of Britain beneath the earthly yoke of Rome; when their work of a moment had passed away, it was for Gregory to bring another folk of Britain as more abiding dwellers within her ghostly fold. Cæsar after Cæsar had given and taken away the crowns of vassal kings; when Cæsar’s name had become but a shadow in Western lands, it was for the Roman Pontiff to bid shear the locks of the last degenerate Merwing, to pour for the first time the kingly unction on a Frankish head. In all these cases, in a hundred others, Rome still speaks as the head and teacher of the nations; she is driven to speak through the voice of her Bishop simply because her Emperor has forsaken her. How truly, how wholly, it was the constant absence, the frequent weakness, of the Emperor out of which the power of the Pontiff grew will be seen by comparing the story of the Old Rome with the story of the New. At Constantinople the Emperor was ever present, ever reigning; where he dwelled and reigned there was no room for any other power to take to itself the slightest fragment of Imperial rule. Never was any line of princes more deeply impressed with a religious character than the Eastern Cæsars; none more constantly made the Faith, the advancement of the Faith, the humiliation of its enemies, the abiding objects of their policy; their style was the “Faithful Emperor;” their cry of battle was “Victory to the Cross.” Nowhere were Church and State more truly one; but nowhere was the temporal ruler more distinctly in all causes and over all persons within his dominions supreme. In the West the present Patriarch had well nigh taken the place of the absent Emperor; in the East the present Emperor had well nigh taken on himself the functions of a Patriarch who in his presence was but his creature. Like his pagan predecessors, it was he, and not